Uruguay’s left-wing coalition Frente Amplio ends campaign to choose presidential candidate

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Frente Amplio, the leftist coalition that governed Uruguay between 2005 and 2020, closed its electoral campaign on Saturday, one day before the internal elections to choose its new president.

A few blocks away from Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium, some 200 people gathered to listen to the candidates in a meeting that lasted about an hour.

Ivonne Passada, senator between 2015 and 2020, and Gonzalo Civila, current deputy, were the two aspirants who spoke in front of a group of people accompanied with flags and t-shirts of their party.

Meanwhile, Fernando Pereira, who presided over Uruguay’s central trade union, the PIT-CNT, was not at the venue because he was in quarantine.

“We feel that there is an expectation of change in the Front; we want to reflect that through these proposals. We want to change the Front because we feel that the country is going through an economic and social crisis; we need a much stronger, more dynamic, and much more participative Front, ” said Civila to the press.

On her part, Passada emphasized that for these elections, there is “a different militancy” and new participation that will require “a lot of training and formation”.

In this election, in which all party adherents over 14 years of age will vote, the results will not be known until December 13, 24 hours after those who live in Argentina and Spain can vote in person.

This Sunday, the election day will occur one day before the first anniversary of the death of Uruguay’s two-time president Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010 and 2015-2020).

The former vice president of Uruguay and now senator Lucía Topolansky assured Efe that “the greatest tribute is to be able to make a good election” of authorities to rebuild after the defeat in the last national elections and “to be able to return to the government”.

Throughout the 50-year history of the political force, different personalities held that position, among them Vázquez himself, who was in that position from 1996 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2004.